


Straight Into My Arms

by BurningTea



Series: Missing You [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Aimee gets a scare, F/M, Hurt Eliot Spencer, Hurt/Comfort, little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9683162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: When Eliot is hurt on a job, he ends up on Aimee's doorstep. And then in her arms.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tidal_race](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidal_race/gifts).



> The prompt from tidal_race was “You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.” - Aimee/Eliot.
> 
> Hope you like it!

Aimee laughs at first. 

Eliot’s been out on a con with his team, one she wasn’t needed for. Not that she gets involved often, but now they live so much closer to her she spends more time with them and, well, it’s hard not to get drawn in. She even has a few grifting lessons from Sophie under her belt, enough to play some roles when the team could do with a hand. This con has brought them even closer, to a town just over from where she lives, but Parker assured her they’d call if she was needed, and last she heard they were on the last leg of the plan this evening. Everything is set to wrap up in time for a visit tomorrow. 

It’s been a kind of wonderful to see Eliot loosen up, to see him settling into the new reality that he gets to be with his team and with Aimee. And he’s been known to play the odd joke. 

So she thinks she can be forgiven when she opens her front door and finds him swaying on the doorstep, red streaks on his face that look fake, and laughs.

“It isn’t Halloween,” she tells him. “And you got to do better than that, Eliot. How’d the job go?”

She thinks he looks confused, and like he’s going to speak, but his eyes glaze and he tips. He tips backwards at first, but Aimee, suddenly not sure this is a bad joke, lunges and grabs him and he changes course, collapsing into her arms. 

He’s heavy. He’s heavy but she works with horses, and she keeps them both upright, Eliot’s hair falling into her face as she heaves him far enough into the house to lay him down. 

Once he’s stretched out, she fumbles for the ear bud she keeps on her, cursing herself for not having it in already as it springs to life in her ear. Hardison’s voice hits her first.

“…knew that I’d know where he was!”

“Hardison?” she asks, cutting in with the tone of voice she uses to get her stable-hands’ attention in the middle of the yard. It rings loud through the house, but Eliot doesn’t react. He’s out cold. “Hardison, Eliot’s at my place. He’s hurt. He passed out.”

“Shit,” Hardison says. “He vanished. We lost track of him after he went in to face down some guys. Heavy stuff. Mob.”

“Mob?” she asks, already checking Eliot’s pulse, his breathing and his eyes, moving on to feel down his body for injuries. “You didn’t say anything about any mob! You said this one was easy.” She pulls the material of his shirt up, working on the buttons with enough force one comes off, and sees a stain across his abdomen. “They got him. Across his middle. Alec, he’s bleeding.”

“What does it look like?” Parker asks, sounding cold. But that’s just Parker’s way at times, and Aimee needs that to cling on to. “Does he need a doctor?”

Aimee pulls the material of his undershirt from his jeans and grimaces. There’s a gash across Eliot’s skin, one that looks deep enough to need stitches, and she isn’t sure how bad it is. 

“Yeah. Yeah, he needs someone.”

“On it,” Hardison says, and by the time Aimee has her first aide kit out, Hardison’s telling her when a doctor will be there, a woman they saved a few months back who owes them. 

Aimee does what she can until the voices in her ear turn into one in her doorway, Dr Hannerty instructing Aimee to give her any new details as she moves to Eliot’s other side and takes over.

Aimee lets her. She sits in the floor, one of Eliot’s hands in hers, and watches as the doctor gets to work. She’s still sitting like that when Hardison and Parker arrive, skidding to a halt in the doorway and turning to cling to each other when they see there’s nothing they can do at the moment. Aimee would get up, would invite them in, but her house is almost their house by now, just as their most recent brew-pub is almost hers, and they don’t need inviting into one of Eliot’s homes. 

Besides, she can’t make herself move. 

On the floor, his hair feathered out and his skin pale, Eliot doesn’t move either.

***

Later, once Hardison and Parker are out on the front porch murmuring to each other, and after Dr Hannerty has promised she’ll be back in the morning to check on Eliot, Aimee sinks down into the chair next to the spare bed and lets herself cry.

She keeps it quiet. She isn’t someone who cries a lot, but the shaky aftershocks of adrenaline and the relief at seeing Eliot sleeping normally are too much, and she needs just a moment. 

“Hey.” Eliot’s voice is weak, and soft, and it makes Aimee jump. “You crying, Sweetheart? Something wrong?”

Wiping at her eyes, she turns to look at him and sees his eyes most of the way open. Whatever the doctor gave him for the pain is still in his system, and he’s not as focused as normal. Not all the way under, though. None of them wanted to give Eliot more than he needed, not with how he can react to sedatives or painkillers. He looks after himself when he needs to, but he doesn’t like anyone putting something in his body he hasn’t agreed to. 

Still, sometimes they have to make these decisions for him, and Aimee is glad to see there’s not much pain on his face. He’s good at hiding it, but she’s one person Eliot’s never really been able to fool.

“Hey, yourself,” she says, knowing she isn’t fooling him about the crying, either. “I’m good. Just a little worried about you there for a bit.”

She sees the confusion on his face. Pulling up something of a smile, she reaches for his hand and grips it, stroking his hair back from his face with her other hand. He lets her. 

“You got yourself hurt,” she says. “Turned up on my doorstep like a stray dog. Now why did you come all the way out here instead of going to Hardison and Parker? You worried them half to death.”

The attempt at scolding comes out wrong, what with how she can’t get any fire in her voice and how she can’t stop checking him over to see he’s okay. 

Eliot shifts, movement running through his body under the covers, and grimaces. Something sharper swims into his eyes.

“Got stabbed,” he says, and it’s half a question, half a statement.

“Looks like,” Aimee says. “Hardison says it was the mob.”

Eliot looks to consider this, and his hand tightens in hers.

“Didn’t mean to scare any of you,” he says. “And I didn’t set off here. Wouldn’t have. Not bleeding. They had me in a van.”

Which doesn’t clear up much at all, but if Eliot felt her place was closer than going back to his team, however he got close enough to make that call, it isn’t the time to argue about it now. The mob could have been taking him out into the middle of nowhere the put a bullet in his skull. 

“You’re crying again,” Eliot says, pulling his hand free and lifting it to her face. He strokes his forefinger down the side of her face as she tells herself to stop tearing up. 

She doesn’t know why she’s crying. Eliot’s been hurt before. She’s seen him hurt before. He’s never passed out in her arms like that, or been so very still on the ground for longer than she wants to think about before help arrived, but she’s seen him hurting. 

“You came to me,” she says. “You were bleeding and you came to me.”

“Sure,” he tells her, his hand sliding down to rest at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Wanted to see you.”

And he smiles. It’s one of those where a side of mouth quirks, so subtle it could be missed. It’s on her list of favorite smiles. She answers it. It comes out watery, she thinks, but it can’t be helped.

“You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

Eliot closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them he gets hold of her arm with his free hand and pulls, urging her to climb over him and cuddle up against his side. He has his arm wrapped around her, one hand on her back, and the other rests on his chest, her fingers twined with his. 

“I always want your attention,” he says, a calm grumble of sound that’s far gentler than most things he lets himself say. 

She doesn’t know if it’s the night or the injury or the drugs. Or maybe it’s seeing her cry. 

“Yeah, well,” she says. “Just call next time. Turn up. You don’t gotta make such a huge deal out of it.”

“You know me,” he says, his breath warm against her scalp. “Always causing a scene.”

He sounds sleepy again, and she squeezes his hand, trying to tell him without words that they can talk more about this later, if he remembers it. He squeezes back, and doesn’t say any more.

Before long, he’s asleep again, breathing steadily, and Aimee could move. She probably should move. She’s not ready for bed and she’s not under the covers, and she should go and make sure Parker and Hardison have what they need to stay over. 

But Eliot fainted, right into her arms, and she finds that now she wants to lie here with his arm around her, and just check that he’s here, and he’s breathing, and he’s safe. 

Anything else they can deal with in the morning.


End file.
